Thursday, 26 April 2012

Well I have no idea what Mr Blogger was up to - where did those sweet peas go? No idea - and as the photos are on my computer back in the UK, they will have to remain a mystery. I have to say that when we finally untangled what seemed like a hundred cords to hook this laptop up, remember passwords that have been long forgotten, that all your comments on the missing post were highly entertaining!

So here's one I made earlier - for Kanban, using one of their Urban Belles stamps. I cut a scallop rectangle using a Nellie Snellen die, and decided it was a shame to throw away the negative part, so I trimmed it into a frame, and matted it with some Kanban embossed cardstock. The top right corner looked a bit bare, so I punched a square, tore it in half, and tied it with string before popping it on with foam pads

Well, we are here, safe and sound, more or less unpacked and quite a stress free journey - until the last little hop from Newark to Tampa. Mike and I were seated separately, I was in a middle seat, the occupants of the aisle and window seats obviously knew each other and were chatting animatedly when I got there. I asked if they would like me to move to aisle or window so that they could sit together, they looked at me as if I was mad, and continued their business meeting right across me - I swear that I could have presented a seminar on their product after thirty minutes of this. What to do? Complain to the cabin crew? Stuff their ipads down their throats? No, I pinned a bright, intelligent, alert look on my face, and when aisle man leaned over to compare some detail with window woman, I leaned forward too, turning my head to him with a bright interested intelligent smile.....when window woman responded, the megawatt attention was turned to her....after five minutes of me doing more head swiveling than a spectator at a tennis match, with my bright intelligent look still pasted to my face, they gave up - I think they were tired of leaning backwards and forwards to address each other, or they may have been a bit alarmed that they were sitting next to a madwoman. I felt wonderfully smug, but didn't dare drop off to sleep, I think the knives were out for me.........

Tuesday, 24 April 2012

Monday, 23 April 2012

I love this Lili of the Valley image, such a sweet little baby. I like doing baby cards in soft pastel shades, that would be suitable for a boy or a girl. The sentiment is by Stampin Up, the scallop card base is by Craftwork Cards

My friend Mandy of Scrappy-go-Lucky in Australia sent me this sweet ceramic heart, she made an order of lovely little ceramic accents when we were in Frankfurt, and sent me a surprise pack of them. You will find them in her store....

The packing continues, but it's getting a bit boring, so I am not talking about it......

My son Edward thinks that Max does not understand his (rather important) job

Max - Do you want to be a fireman when you grow up Daddy?I am grown upMax - Oh yes. I think you should be a paramedic

This is the child who has seen photos of his daddy all dressed in scrubs ready for his (Max's) arrival in the world, and tells everyone 'my daddy used to be a doctor!'

Sunday, 22 April 2012

I have had a hectic day, so thought I would share this card - well it made me smile when I was making it! The pink punched piece on the right is an EK Success border punch, and I cut a strip of the diamonds from the pattern paper to layer on top of it.

My friend Carol in Florida bought me the stamps - they made us laugh!

Here is why I am a bit frazzled - a work in progress - can you see any clothes in these suitcases? No, not a Tshirt to be seen, just paper, and inks, and all manner of stuff I just can't manage without, and can't afford to duplicate, like Nestabilities, embossing folders, distress inks. Then there is all my Craftwork Cards stuff, my Polkadoodles CD's, my new Kanban stuff..........I have a lot of the basics in both places, but it's all those extras (multiplied when I came back because of the spending spree I will have with coupons at Michaels and Jo-anns!)

Saturday, 21 April 2012

I am not a huge fan of Magnolia stamps, but every so often I have the urge to colour one, especially as a friend loves them, she calls them the 'little girls with no faces!', and it's her birthday next week.....I do love the clothes these little children wear, this stamp is probably about four years old and she still looks trendy

I punched some flowers and leaves to make a spray

Maybe I was too harsh - she does look cute!

We have rebooked our flights for early next week, so if all goes according to plan, my timetable over the next few days will be:

Washing and ironing - 3 hours

Cleaning the house - 4 hours

Packing - 1 hour

Sorting and packing my craft stuff - 2 days!

I have been doing a bit of armchair shopping again, Blitzy have some Sissix Tim Holtz alterations embossing folders on sale, I only have a couple of these and I love the way they emboss, really crisp, so I ordered four sets, they should be waiting for me when I get back to the States. One of the sets is this one, I just love those pine trees, and I have some ideas for the bare tree as well...........then I couldn't resist the sewing set, those wonky stitches look just like my sewing!

Hop over there and see what all the fuss is about, they have some great bargains, and if you refer friends you get credits as well.....can't be bad

Thursday, 19 April 2012

I love this little boy image from Sugar Nellie - it's a digi stamp so I can just print it out and start colouring. I think it's the perfect card for a little boy to give to his Daddy for a birthday or fathers day.

Coloured with Promarkers:

Skin ivory and blush

hair ivory, buttercup and caramel

shirt sandstone, caramel tan

shorts denim blue and pastel blue

toy lipstick red and red

I knew I would use this Nellie Snellen punch over and over. I didn't have a matching ribbon in the right width, so I cut a sliver of the plaid paper and used that to thread the tags

What did I tell you? Went down into the town today to get some groceries, hair washed, smart (ish) clothes. Did I see anyone I know? Nobody. Not a friend to be seen. I was approached by an old tramp who asked me if I could spare a pound, so obviously I looked the part to him at least!

Wednesday, 18 April 2012

Here are two of the first cards made for Kanban, for this first one I used their red striped paper and the flowers are rolled roses, which I sprayed with water first to make them pliable, before distressing and curling the edges. The scroll is a Sissix die, and the sentiment and pearls are also from Kanban

For this next one I used one of Kanbans aperture cards and butterfly background stamps. I stamped the background in embossing ink and clear embossed it, then I swiped the panel with various colour distress inks, before wiping with a tissue. The butterfly on the front of the card was also coloured with distress inks. Punched flowers and a Sissix leaf spray finished it off......

Thanks again for all the good wishes. Mike is doing well.

I have made a discovery. Going shopping with freshly washed hair and nice clothes means that you will never meet anyone you know. However, if you go shopping with hedgehog hair and old jeans, allow extra time, because you will bump into everyone you know, including that girl from long-ago schooldays, who was always the prettiest/best dressed and irritatingly hasn't changed much.........

Monday, 16 April 2012

Here's one I made using an adorable little pirate stamp by Nellie Snellen. The ribbon tags were done with a Nellie punch, and the letters are little alpha stickers from her. All these are available from Scrappy-go-Lucky - I certainly haven't been able to find the teensy alphas here in the UK, mores the pity. I love these clip punches that she does, and will be using them a lot. The papers are old ones from a DCWV stack

Coloured with Promarkers...

Skin: blush and soft peach

blues: pastel blue, denim blue and cornflower

browns: sandstone, caramel, tan

Not a lot of time to sit and absorb the funny side of life at the moment - it's hard to do that when you are sitting in a doctors surgery for the seventh time in a week. However, I was cheered to read a horoscope while we were waiting. Mine said'This past week has been very stressful, next week, the moon is in alignment with Mars and your stress will lessen. Soon you will be wondering what you were stressed about........'Phew. What a relief, I felt instantly much much better, quite perky in fact (although I only believe horoscopes when they say something nice...). Then I saw the date on the magazine. February 2010. Oh dear. Gin and tonic anyone?

Sunday, 15 April 2012

Here we are - mid April already, so I'm a bit late with this. This month's challenge will run until May 1st, so slightly less time this month. Two winners - one my favourite card, one chosen randomly, will be able to chose a Collectors set of 6 Promarkers of their choice from Letraset. Go HERE to have a little daydream about what set you would choose if you win.......

Here's what Letraset say about the sets

There are 6 sets, each set contains 6 markers and four collectible swatches. The first swatch acts as a reference for the ProMarker colours included in the set, while the remaining three swatches suggest further tonal combinations. Once you have collected all 6 collector’s sets, you can complete the swatch book (referencing all 148 ProMarker colours in tonal groups) with the swatch cover and fastener (available separately).

ProMarker Collector’s sets have been carefully chosen to compliment and work well together, meaning you can easily mix and match sets to suit your own personal style.

Each set contains six ProMarkers grouped by tones, offering a balanced and logical way to build your marker collection.

Buying in tones is a great way to build your marker palette. Even if you only have one or two sets, you’ll have enough colours to start designing straight away.

Please link your photo to Mr Linky below. A new card made for the challenge please, no back linking to old posts on your blog. If you don't have a blog, you can still join in, either by putting your photo in an album like Picassa (preferred method because it saves me a lot of faffing about!) or by emailing your photo to me, and I will put it on this post. You can enter as many times as you like, please link back to the challenge on your blog. Good luck x

A big thank you to everyone for your kind get well wishes for Mike, he is doing well now, back to his old self, so we can start to move forward..........

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Saturday, 14 April 2012

Time for the Polkadoodles weekly challenge, this week, it's Pretty in Pink, I used a scene and image from the new Sugar plum CD, I printed the little girl out twice, once onto spotty paper and cut out her dress from that and paper pieced it. I added some punched flowers to the fence scene. Do join in with the challenge if you fancy making a pink card - you don't have to use Polkadoodles products

On to the winners of the March challenge. The entry I chose for originality of the use of 'found' items was this one by Brenda (Brenda was the random draw winner last month, and the favourite of the month this month! Just shows, it pays to keep trying.....). She used all mannner of stuff, including dyeing a shelf liner, and building a fence out of matchsticks! Well done Brenda

and the random winner was Gra, with this lovely mermaid card, using wrapping paper very effectively to create a watery background for her mermaid card - congrats Gra

If you would both email me with your address and telephone number, telling me which stamp set you would like Letraset to send you, your prizes will be in the mail to you

On to the winner of the Sugar Plum Polkadoodles CD blog hop winner. The name that Mr Random.org pulled out of the hat was.......

MelodyR aka Ry&MysMan

Congrats Melody, email me with your address and I will get your CD in the mail

The next challenge will be posted tomorrow, be sure to call back and see what I have come up with for this month.

A lot of you have noticed a rather deafening silence this week, I don't think I have ever gone so long without posting, and thanks to all my regular blog friends who noticed and emailed me. Without going into detail, Mike my husband was taken ill rather suddenly and dramatically on Sunday night, this week has been a constant round of tests and treatments, he is getting better and the doctors are pleased with him, but our trip to the USA has had to be postponed for the time being, so I have had a lot to deal with this week, and any thoughts of crafting or blogging were very firmly on the back burner! I'm back now though, so I'll see you tomorrow with the April challenge x

Monday, 9 April 2012

As soon as I saw this weathered wood paper from the new Sweet Pea collection by Craftwork Cards, I knew what I wanted to do.....use my memory box window die with the shutters, and build a spring scene.........

The flowers were punched from the pastel papers, and shaped with a foam mat and a ball tool before being arranged into the window box, which I cut by hand......

I put some blossoms onto the twig branch, to make it more Springlike. Do you know what they are? I punched holes using the largest punch on a cropadile, and collected the little punched circles. They are perfect!

Max and Milo were on great form - sometimes Max's enthusiastic hugs leave his little brother looking a bit bewildered.........

Out grandchildren call us Ma and Pops, but Milo has developed his own unique way of addressing us - he always calls each of us 'MandPops', so he has turned us into a sort of generic pair of grandparents, interchangeable and with the same name.

I will be sorting out the winners of this months challenge over the next couple of days, forgive me but I have had a few problems to deal with. I need to think of the next challenge as well.......... watch this space

Sunday, 8 April 2012

I have been itching to make stuff with the new Sweet Pea collection by Craftwork Cards, the colours and textures are just gorgeous, my all time favourite I think. I love the whitewashed weathered wood look, and it makes it so easy to make lovely cards. For this first one, I just used two of the textured squares as a background to some stamped flowers (also by Craftwork Cards), and stamped the blooms a second time onto the taupe paper, and cut out.....

and this second one was made in much the same way, but using one of the diecut blooms as a focal point.....I get a lot of queries asking if these papers are available in the USA, Craftwork Cards will ship to North America, but there is a flat rate shipping charge of £22 which is $35, so if you are desperate to get hold of some, it may pay for you to club together with a couple of crafty friends to share the shipping costs. Card Candi and the messages are available in the States now though....

I mentioned news..... woo hoo! I am going to be doing stuff for Kanban Crafts, I have always loved their stamps and the gorgeous patterned cardstock, so I am very delighted to be joining a brand new design team, the postman has already staggered up the path with a huge box of goodies, so watch this space.........

just to remind you, here are a few of my past cards made with Kanban products........

The monthly challenge closes tomorrow night, so if you have a bit of time on your hands in between scoffing all the Easter eggs, you just have time to get a card done.......

Friday, 6 April 2012

Here's a card I made using some foiled grey and lilac papers from the Dreamcatcher paper pad from QVC (UK)

I punched the flowers, then sprayed them with Perfect Pearls mist for a lavender sheen....

the sentiment is from Clarity Stamps, the mat was cut with Elegant Edges

I hope you all have a peaceful and joyous Easter weekend. We are off to London on Sunday, bearing eggs galore, to see Max and Milo. Max of course is learning to read - C A T says cat, that type of thing. So they were in Pizza Express and he was 'reading' the menu. 'They have chocolate cake' he announced'Show me and tell me what it says' said Daddy'I can't tell you, I don't speak Italian' said the boy wonder..........